Kenyan-born Edwin Dande is the founder of Cytonn Investments, an alternative investment management and real estate company, with offices in Nairobi and DC Metro area. Cytonn, which was founded in 2014 and has more than $800 million in assets under management, is primarily focused on offering alternative investment solutions to global institutional investors, individual high net-worth investors, local institutional investors and diaspora investors interested in the East-African region. Its investment solutions are based on four main products: real estate, structured solutions, private equity and advisory.
Dande, 40, studied for an MBA at Wharton and had stints at Lehman Brothers and Bank Of America before returning to Kenya in 2011 where he took up the position as CEO of Britam Asset Managers, a subsidiary company of Britam Holdings, a public listed insurance and financial services firm in Kenya. In 2014, along with a few colleagues at Britam, he controversially branched out to establish Cytonn.
He recently spoke to me recounting the early days, musing on the journey so far, and talking about Cytonn’s plans for the future.
Tell me about your professional and educational background.
I am an accountant and an investment banker. I had the good fortune of starting my career as an accountant and investment banker at KPMG and Lehman Brothers respectively; I say good fortune because when I started, they were both underdogs in their respective industries, so they had to hassle to compete, and in both firms, I learned how to outcompete with fewer resources, with speed and accuracy of execution as the competitive advantage. Besides the two firms, I have also worked at Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Britam and now Cytonn, which I hope will be my last gig. Education - Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting from the Monmouth University, I hold an MBA, Finance Major from the Wharton School University of Pennsylvania and, and I am also a Certified Public Accountant. Having said all the above, my greatest professional and career education has been working under highly capable and demanding teams early in my career, you can’t get that in school
Walk me through the earliest beginnings of Cytonn and what motivated you and senior executives of Britam to leave and set up your own shop. I remember there was some bad blood between you and your former employer; do you care to revisit it?
First, let me say Britam is a great brand in Kenya with a rich heritage of 50 years in this market and it’s a brand we are proud about, and especially proud about our time there. We ran the asset management business of the group for 3 years, and in that time, we were able to grow the company from $130 million of assets under management to $700 million and profits from $200,000 to over $3 million. However, the tensions between a captive asset manager within a diversified financial services group is common and that was our point of departure; when an asset manager in a diversified financial services group gets a good deal, who does it belong to: the group, the insurance arm or the asset management client? For us it was clear our fiduciary duty is to our investing clients. Consequently we decided it was better pursuing our trade from an independent platform where we could solely be focused on the interest of our clients. It may not be common in this market, but it is very common for investment teams to group up and launch their own brand. Of course our former employers sued us with all manner of baseless claims, and thankfully in our new constitutional dispensations, the courts are fairly reliable and all the matters at this point have either been withdrawn or are at the tail end. But we have no issues at all with our former employers, they may have issues with us, which from our perspective are really just trying to cut down a competitor, but so far, it has strengthened our resolve.
Original article and pictures take www.forbes.com site
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